The player takes the role of Giana (referred to as Gianna in the scrolling intro and also the intended name before a typo was made on the cover art and the developers just went with that rather than having the cover remade[1]), a girl who suffers from a nightmare, in which she travels through 32 dungeons full of monsters, while collecting ominous diamonds and looking for her sister Maria. If the player wins the final battle, Giana will be awakened by her sister.[2]

The Great Giana Sisters is a 2D side-scrolling arcade game in which the player controls either Giana or her sister Maria. The game supports alternating 2 players, with second player taking control of Maria.

Each level contains a number of dream crystals, which gives points when collected in order to make the game's high score. An extra life can be gained by collecting 100 dream crystals. Extra lives can also be found in the form of hidden "Lollipop" items.

Enemies can be defeated by jumping on them or shooting them after obtaining the relevant powerups. The enemies include owls, rolling eyeballs, flesh-eating fish and deadly insects. The "Fire Wheel" transforms Giana into a punk with the ability to crush rocks by jumping beneath them. "Lightning Bolt" awards Giana "Dream Bubbles", a single projectile shot. "Double Lightning" gives her ability to shoot recoiling projectiles. "Strawberries" gives the ability to shoot homing projectiles. There is one defensive item in the game, the "Water-Drop", which protects Giana against fire. A number of special items can also be triggered that affects the entire screen, such as the "Clock", which freezes all enemies on-screen, and the "Magic Bombs" kills all enemies. These items are found in the item blocks scattered around the stages.

There are two types of stages in the game, an "Overworld" and "Underground" stage. The "Overworld stages" feature green scenery and pipe-shaped objects, along with bottomless pits for Giana to avoid. The "Underground" stages feature additional hazards such as water and fire, as well as bosses.

There are in total 32 stages in the game. Hidden "Warp-Blocks" can be found to jump through portions of the game.

According to several urban legends, Nintendo opened a lawsuit case against Time Warp Productions and Rainbow Arts, because Nintendo saw a direct copyright infringement to its new game Super Mario Bros. But in fact, there has never been such a lawsuit. Neither Nintendo, nor the German programmers claim to be privy to any lawsuits. This myth was created shortly after the game was taken out of stores. Nintendo itself later admitted to have influenced the stop of sales directly, as it did already before with other games.[5]

Several factors influenced the stop of the sales of the game, including conspicuous similarities: the general gameplay and the first level of The Great Giana Sisters is nearly identical in layout to the first stage found in Nintendo'sSuper Mario Bros. The immediate similarity to Super Mario Bros. ensured that The Great Giana Sisters was quickly noticed by both the public and the video game industry itself. Nintendo urged the makers of The Great Giana Sisters to withdraw the game from sale, arguing that it was obvious copyright infringement. Time Warp Productions and Rainbow Arts immediately stopped the production and, at the same time, the game began vanishing from the stores.[5][6][7] The difficulty in obtaining copies of the game has led to them being sought out as collector's items.[8][9]

The game has been ported to numerous systems since its release. A planned port for the ZX Spectrum was reviewed in magazines, though eventually cancelled due to legal pressures.[3] In 1993, Dutch developer Sunrise released a version for the MSX, programmed by Jan van Valburg. Unofficially, the game has been cloned on Windows, DOS, Linux, Mac OS X, AmigaOS 4, NetBSD, AROS, MorphOS, and Symbian OS. An unofficial clone of the Commodore 64 version was also made for the Nintendo DS.[10]

In 2005, a mobile version of the game, titled simply Giana Sisters, was released for Android phones, and appears in the Ouya's Discover Store at launch.[11]

Upon its release, The Great Giana Sisters received strong critical praise and acclaim from the gaming magazines across Europe. Zzap!64 described the game as "amazing" and concluded with the overall opinion that Great Giana Sisters was "a fabulous, compelling and constantly rewarding arcade adventure".[13]Powerplay's review stated that they felt the game did not live up to the standards set by Super Mario Bros., but "still achieves being an entertaining pleasure."[14]

Despite never seeing a release, the ZX Spectrum version gained favorable reviews from Spectrum-based magazines. CRASH noted that the game was "highly addictive and great fun to play. Plenty of hidden passages and surprise features should keep you hooked for weeks".[17]

Great Giana Sisters has gained a strong cult following over the years, citing its strong soundtrack and unique charm. On the online web resource Lemon64, staff member Jan Egil Romestrand remarked that the game is "must-have" for any serious C64 games collector."[16] As of 2012, it ranks 6th place on the Top 10 Games List on Gamebase 64.[18]

Chris Hülsbeck's soundtrack for the game has become one of the most popular video game soundtracks of all time. It has received over 50 remixes on the popular music arrangement resource Remix64. The music of Great Giana Sisters was featured in the live orchestra concert Symphonic Shades held in Cologne, Germany on August 23, 2008. The arrangement was made by Jonne Valtonen, and performed by the WDR Radio Orchestra. The concert was the first video game orchestra concert to be broadcast live on radio. The concert recording received an album release in 2009. The album is now out of print, but can still be bought digitally through Amazon.[19]

Shortly after the release of The Great Giana Sisters, Time Warp began developing a sequel which was announced as Giana 2: Arther and Martha in Future World, a new game with a futuristic setting. Due to the trouble caused by the legal pressure coming from Nintendo, it was deemed too risky for the small developer to once again produce a game associated with the Giana Sisters brand. Time Warp renamed the game Hard'n'Heavy, and changed the game's protagonists into robots rather than the Giana sisters.[22]Hard'n'Heavy was released on the Commodore 64 and Amiga in 1989.[23]

In April 2009, publisher DTP Entertainment and developer Spellbound Interactive, then owner of the game's IP, released a new Giana Sisters game in Europe with an extensive graphical update for the Nintendo DS, titled Giana Sisters DS.[24] It has since been released in Australia. The game features all-new levels and more gameplay elements, and a recreation of the original game's levels can be unlocked. Giana Sisters DS was released in North America in February 2011 by publisher Destineer, though their official website does not have it listed, and is only available through several retailers such as Walmart and Newegg.com.[citation needed]